In presenting recent research in rice science and engineering, this book provides a systematic overview of rice from farming to consumption. It covers each stage of rice production, from pre-harvest to storage, processing, and product applications. It includes the latest knowledge and efforts of rice researchers to improve the methods of harvesting, handling, drying, storage, and milling.

The book also reveals advances that have led to functionalizing rice components and making rice production more sustainable. In addition, the book explains methods for improving nutritional quality of rice-based diets through fortification. Utilization of by-products, such as rice bran and hulls, is also addressed.

From the Preface

Rice is one of the main staple foods in most parts of the world, and its consumption keeps increasing as a result of population growth, urbanization, and changes in population diets. Sustainable, efficient, and environmentally friendly methods and practices for rice farming, handling, and processing are needed to meet the increasing rice demand and the challenges of limited resources, such as land, water, energy, and labor. The advancements and improvements in genetic engineering, production, processing technology, and utilization have brought rice to a new frontier in addressing the needs of nutrition, affordability, and sustainability of stable food in our society.

An interesting book entitled “Advances in Science & Engineering of Rice” has been recently published, covering the science and technology of the production and processing of rice. It is wholly devoted to different aspects of rice processing. Total of 16 chapters are included. The book starts with an overview on the rice production statistics, rice compositions and structure, factors affecting cultivation, statistics of postharvest losses, by-products from rice, environmental impacts and sustainable in rice production in the opening chapter. The second chapter explains the genetic development of rice cultivars for improving the diversifications of physicochemical and nutritional properties of rice. The second part of the book discusses the harvesting and processing aspects of rice. It elucidates the harvesting methods of rice with complete economic and energy evaluation techniques. In addition, it presents drying aspects of rice including moisture measurement methods, equilibrium moisture content and moisture sorption isotherm, conditions to control rice fissuring, different drying methods, and drying kinetics and modeling. It considers a relatively good chapter on the basics of rice drying. The importance of aeration during storage of rice in bins and its role in quality, detailed design procedures of the aeration system with appropriate equations have been discussed in the chapter. The terminologies on rice milling, mechanisms, and types of milling operation are also included. The aging of rice strongly affects the physicochemical properties, cooking quality and the functionality of the rice-based products. Mechanisms of rice aging are clearly explained in the chapter. Parboiling – the stage before milling of paddy has been described well by focusing the process, and its benefits including increase in yield, storage stability, shelf life, and the health benefits (e.g., higher vitamin B, micronutrients, resistant starch, and low glycemic index). Furthermore, the chapter takes into account the methods of parboiling and associated unit operations.

The third part presents the microbial safety of rice during storage and processing. It discusses potential mycotoxigenic fungi for mycotoxins contaminations, the prevalence of microbial and their spoilage, microbial growth rate as a function of temperature and moisture, conditions of fungal growth, heavy metals contaminations. In addition, size and shape, mass volume-area characteristics, surface properties, dielectric properties, thermal properties, mechanical properties, rheological and textural properties of rice have been described comprehensively with terminologies, measurement techniques, and selected data. This part also covers colorimetric properties, compositions, and nutrients of rice. The chapter further focuses on fortification of rice, its controlling factors, and available technologies. The rice milling, processing of by-products, quality attributes, functional properties, and utilization of byproducts are thoroughly discussed in the fourth part. There are numbers of non-food applications of rice and numbers of chapters discuss the uses of rice by-products, such as straw, husk, rice bran oil, and husk ash.

The list of contributors is a balanced one, representing various rice producing countries; and contributed chapters are with in their areas of expertise. The book lacks the biographies of editors, which is unusual. The title of the book should be “Advances in Science and Technology of Rice” since it contains mainly technology with relatively low depth of engineering aspects. This book would be interesting to the graduate students and professionals working in the field of rice and cereal industries. I enjoyed reading this book.

Zhongli Pan, Ph.D. is a Research Engineer in the Healthy Processed Foods Research Unit, Western Regional Research Center, Agricultural Research Service (ARS), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, University of California, Davis. Dr. Pan received his B.S. and first M.S. degree in Agricultural Engineering from Northeast Agricultural University, China, his second M.S. degree in Food Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his Ph.D. degree in Food Engineering from the University of California, Davis.

He has outstanding work experience in academia, research institutions and industry. He served as Director of World Food Center – China, UC Davis, and Manager of Far East Tech Service, Archer Daniels Midland Co. He has led many international cooperation activities and research projects through his academic and research career at the University of California, Davis and the USDA-ARS. Dr. Pan is a world renowned expert of food engineering and sciences. He has made significant contribution in the research and development of new food and agricultural processing and postharvest technologies for producing nutritious, healthy and safe foods. He also developed effective technologies for value-added utilization of byproducts from food and agricultural product processing. He has authored more than 300 scientific publications, patents, books and book chapters. Dr. Pan has received several prestigious awards, including 2007 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, 2007 Herbert L. Rothbart Outstanding Early Career Research Scientist Award of the USDA-ARS, 2008 Bring Charm to the World Award in China, 2012 Distinguished Career Award – Association of Overseas Chinese Agricultural, Biological, and Food Engineers, 2017 China Government Friendship Award, 2017 Award for Outstanding Commercialization Success – Federal Laboratory Consortium (Far West), 2017 Technology Transfer Award – Pacific West Area, USDA-ARS, and 2017 Life Achievement Award – Chinese American Food Society.

Ragab Khir, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Food Engineering, Department of Agricultural Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt, and Project Scientist at the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, University of California, Davis, USA.

Dr. Khir graduated in 1991 from the Faculty of Agriculture, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt, with a degree in Agricultural Engineering. He obtained an M.S. degree from the Suez Canal University, and a Ph.D. degree through a joint program between University of California, Davis, and Suez Canal University in 2008. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2014. Following years of teaching at Suez Canal University, he moved to the University of California, Davis, to work as a Postdoctoral Scholar specializing in Food Engineering from 2011 to 2017, and as Project Scientist from 2017 till present.

Dr. Khir’s research interests are focused on developing infrared radiation (IR) heating technologies for food processing that have promising merits, including improved product quality and safety, increased energy and processing efficiency, reduction in water and chemical usage, improving consistency and accuracy of rice milling appraisals, and characterizing properties of food products. He has led research to demonstrate and commercialize the newly developed IR food processing technologies for improved food healthfulness, quality, and safety while saving energy and water during food processing. He has received the Technology Transfer Award in 2017.

Dr. Khir has authored and co-authored more than 105 publications, including book chapters, technical reports, proceeding papers and posters, and peer-reviewed articles published and cited in internationally recognized and peer-reviewed journals. He has presented his achievements as a plenary session speaker at many international conferences and as an invited speaker on many occasions. He is a reviewer for several peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Khir is a member of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE), Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), International Commission of Agricultural Engineers (CIGR), and Egyptian Society of Agricultural Engineering.